Waltzing Matilda was written to woo

It is Australia’s unofficial national anthem but far from being a tale of
anti-establishment rebellion, Waltzing Matilda was simply a “ditty” to
impress an outback beauty, historians claim.

By Nick Squires in Sydney

12:31PM BST 06 May 2008

The folk song, about a swagman [tramp] who steals a sheep but drowns himself in a billabong [lake] rather than be captured by police troopers, was written by Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson in 1895.

It has long been interpreted as an allegory for working class rights and the struggle of downtrodden shearers, who had staged a bitter strike over low wages shortly before Paterson wrote the song.

The National Library of Australia describes the ballad as “embodying the free spirit, resourcefulness and defiance of authority associated with the Australian national character.”

But it was more likely to have been penned by Paterson to show off to a farmer’s daughter, Christina Macpherson, with whom he flirted during a visit to her family’s property in outback Queensland.

“We were unable to find any support in the evidence for the proposition that Waltzing Matilda is an allegory of the shearer's strike or an anthem for a free and socialist Australia,” historian Peter Forrest, the author of "Banjo and Christina: the True Story of Waltzing Matilda", told ABC radio.